Nick Zito's ready to tackle Breeder's Cup Challenge with Commentator

SARATOGA SPRINGS - Nick Zito's reputation is based on his training expertise with young classic runners. Saturday he brings back an old classy horse on the richest day of racing at this year's meet.

The 7-year-old gelding Commentator will try to capture his second Whitney Handicap, the anchor race of the quartet of Breeders' Cup Challenge "Win and You're In" events Saturday afternoon. All four stakes are graded, and feature champions Wait A While (in the Diana), Thor's Echo (in the Vanderbilt), and Ginger Punch (in the Go for Wand). The purse total of $1.7 million on the 11-race card is a Spa record.

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Commentator won one of the most thrilling races in recent Saratoga history in the Whitney three years ago.

"That was a special day for us," Zito said of the 2005 win, which saw Commentator hold on courageously to nose out eventual Horse of the Year Saint Liam. Two days after the victory, Zito was inducted in the Racing Hall of Fame.

Although the Whitney field lacks star power, 10 veterans will line up against Commentator, who drew the rail and will gun to the front. Grasshopper, who nearly upset Street Sense in last year's Travers, and Pimlico Special winner Student Council are among the rivals in a well-matched bunch.

The $500,000 Grade I Diana, for fillies and mares at nine furlongs on the turf, kicks off a guaranteed $500,000 Pick Four. It is probably the deepest field of the four Challenge races. All 10 runners have won or placed in graded or group stakes. Wait a While returns from a seven-month layoff for a fractured tibia.

Ginger Punch, the 1-2 morning-line favorite (she is coupled with Spring Waltz), will try to win the $250,000 (Grade I) Go for Wand for older fillies and mares for the second consecutive year. Despite a misadventure a few days ago when she got loose near trainer Bobby Frankel's barn, her status as the filly to beat is indisputable. She will be the 124-pound highweight, and concedes from seven to 11 pounds to the other seven distaffers.

The four Breeders' Cup races will be televised live by ABC from 4-6 p.m. Post time for the Whitney is approximately 5:46 p.m.

LAKE GEORGE: After two days of nearly nonstop rain, the first turf race finally went to the gate Friday. Three other scheduled grass races were switched to the main track, but the featured $150,000 (Grade II) Lake George stayed on the very soft turf course, which was a lush and lovely emerald green after being unused since last Sept.3 (when an unknown colt named Big Brown won a maiden race by 11 lengths).

My Princess Jess ($6.10) won a roughly run race. Mousse Au Chocolat, the 9-5 favorite making her first U.S. start, reared at the gate and was nearly knocked down in the stretch after being tripped by eventual fourth-place finisher Receipt. The stewards took a long look, but left Receipt with the fourth-place check.

The winner, a 3-year-old filly trained by Barclay Tagg, bowled her way through a narrow opening under Eibar Coa and won her second start for Lael Stable, the nom de course of Roy and Gretchen Jackson, best known as the owners of Barbaro.